Hello friends and fellow space cadets.
What a wild September it has been for me. I’ve been MIA off my website and social media for a few weeks because of a mental health issue that came up which I won’t get into detail here. I had a momentary feeling while writing this after weeks of absence that I was Gandalf saying to the fellowship “I return to you now, at the turn of the tide.” So I return to you now with some fairly exciting news on the Qualia Reed literary front.
Firstly, I am proud to announce the release date of not only Electron Spin (Sci-fi), but also Beyond The Falling Snow (Fantasy). Both stories which are full length novels, will release to the public on October 1st, 2023, ten days from writing this! Both stories are the result of hundreds of hours of toiling over a keyboard writing, editing, agonizing, and formatting.
This feels like peak Qualia in terms of output, and I doubt I’ll ever have multiple novels ready at the same time ever again, though never say never I suppose. I’m very proud of these stories, and especially with Electron Spin, which I wrote after BTFS, I revised more than any other story I’ve written (8 drafts) and had professionally edited at my own cost.
I think the result of all this is two novels that will be easily visible as my two most professional and well written stories to date. I’m proud of the giant amount of work that I’ve put into these stories and I hope you enjoy them. That being said, my mental health journey this month has changed my mind on a few things. Since fall of 2022, I have generally been releasing a short story, novella, or novel every 1-3 months. This has largely been due to increased ability as I was off work, and had significantly more free time. While this has b
een amazing, and is the dream job that I have always wanted, it doesn’t pay the bills at all. This is okay though, as publishing, especially self-publishing, is an extremely difficult market. Why am I bringing this up?
I will continue to write stories, hopefully for the remainder of my days on this planet, but I will likely publish less in the future. Suffice to say, the hours I spend in the formatting, and especially the marketing/promotion to bring stories to a very small market is intense. I LOVE writing, and seeing completed works on my shelf, but increasing my online presence has been destructive on my psyche (Shout out to meta and the dumpster fire formerly known as twitter). As things progress, I will of course let everyone know via this email list, or via my Instagram, when new projects are releasing.
My other piece of news is that I will be doing my first book fair October 14th in Courtenay, BC at the Big Island Book Fair. I hope to see some of you come check it out, it should be fun, even if we just chat and grab a snack or drink there.
Before I leave you for now, I have a request! I need your help my dedicated readers. Would you please check out this survey and let me know which of the following projects you’d like to see me focus on for 2024? I’ll likely work on all of them, but let me know which ones you are most interested in so I know which ones people are the most excited about.
Survey can be accessed here:
Thanks all,
Looking forward to sharing more stories with you soon.
Love Qualia.
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